Knicks Morning News (2025.11.10)

I will repeat that I’m not going to get too giddy about any early season accomplishments, or too alarmed over any early season failures. In fact, this might be the first year since the 1990’s that the regular season means close to nothing for me.

I would put us in a very similar position to the Cavs last year. They shtcanned J. B. Bickerstaff after his team got GSed in the playoffs to the eventual champions, and Altman brought in Kenny Atkinson, who coached them to a 64-18 season, only to helplessly flail away as his banged up team once again got GSed in the second round to a team that came one win short of winning the championship, possibly due to Hali’s injury. Meanwhile, Bickerstaff is doing a very nice job in Detroit, even though they are missing Ivey and lost THJ and probably Beasley.

So at the end of the day, it sure is fun to hype up the coaching change, and this brand of basketball will clearly be much easier on the eyes than last year’s. It’s nice not to hear constant grumbling about minutes, or about antiquated offensive strategies and schemes. It’s also nice to see our players playing roles that seem to be bringing out their best selves. It’s nice not to hear Thibs constantly bellowing and scowling, and giving canned, repetitive answers during postgames. But as there are in Cleveland, there are two existential questions that are not anywhere close to being answered, and can’t be answered until at least May:
1) is this a championship caliber roster (in the absence of [additional] amazingly good fortune)?
2) Is Mike Brown’s coaching a decided upgrade in the pursuit of a championship than the previous coach, given the roster he has to work with?

I can tell you this for certain: if the answer to both of those questions is “yes,” no one will be happier than me. But until we actually see playoff results, I am reserving judgment no matter what happens in the regular season, and even the pretense of judgment about those answers. Frankly, I’m way more concerned about question 1, which in the absence of a true “genius” coach, sort of makes question 2 far less relevant. The KAT-Brunson pairing is a fundamental issue, and every game I see KAT (and others) make the kind of decisions (and non-decisions) that lose teams tough playoff games.

I’m just going to enjoy the improved aesthetics of the ride as much as I can until spring, when we either turn into a pumpkin or the glass slipper fits.

We have 3 starters with a BPM of 4.8 or over, and none of them are named Brunson or KAT.

Right now, Yabu might be the worst quasi-rotation player in the NBA. Maybe he improves, maybe not. If he doesn’t then yeah, Precious would be better…but not enough to care all that much.

I agree that Brunson is still adjusting, and that it is probably affecting his shooting. Same with KAT, who is only shooting .326 from 3 on similar volume to last year.

Still, shooting 38.2% from 3 on 42.9 3PA per game seems about right. Mikal and OG will probably regress downward to cancel out KAT and Brunson as they regress upward. Personally, I think being 5th or 6th in 3PAr is where this team should be, largely because we have guys who can get to the rim. I’d like to see a bunch of games that we win despite going 12-40 from 3 because we dominated in the 2pt range, whether in the paint or in the midrange.

“Mikal has been a top 10 player in the league in BPM, and OG is top 15. Both of those guys have been brutally effective, no notes. I don’t know what to make of Mikal Bridges anymore. He’s playing like a particularly devastating version of the Phoenix Suns Mikal. His stat line this year looks actually very similar to his third season in the league, similar numbers across the board in terms of usage, efficiency, turnovers, and steals. We’re getting the platonic ideal of Mikal so far.”

I think, as d-mar pointed out yesterday, that the Mikal-Thibs disconnect was very real, which was reason alone to move on from Thibs. Whether Mikal was right or wrong for voicing his opinion about playing the bench more, a) it was a salient point being made by the guy playing the most minutes, and b) Mikal is among the most team-oriented (i.e. non-selfish) players in the NBA. Thibs’ reaction (throwing Mikal under the bus and totally ignoring his concerns) was beyond unacceptable.

In terms of x’s and o’s, I was just looking at Mikal’s B-R page. He is obviously unconscious from 3. On the surface, he seems to be the poster child for moving his midrange shots to the rim and 3’s. However, it seems to be more about percentage than volume. He is taking 3.4 fewer 2PA a game, and it seems like nearly all of those attempts are coming out of the midrange bucket. So is it possible that he is passing those paint touches back out (i.e. spraying the ball) resulting in a 50% increase in his AST% (1.5 more APG)? If there is one major differenct between this version of Mikal and the PHX version JK alluded to, it’s the much improved AST rate.

The great news is that those midrange shots are still available if he needs to take them when the 3’s aren’t falling.

If there is a negative, it’s that his FTr is back down below the Mendoza line.

“Could very well be argued that OG is our most indispensable player right now…”

One ominous feature of this team is that every single player in our top 7 seems to be our “most indispensable player.”

As opposed to the Thunder, who just keep on rolling no matter who is out, other than SGA of course!

I still think Leon was bidding against himself when he agreed to trade 5 firsts and a swap for Mikal, but If we can get something resembling this level of production out of him for a few years, it will be a lot easier to swallow.

“The evidence I do have is that he used to be able to guard PGs extremely well and that’s an extremely valuable skill as few people can keep up with modern PGs.”

Was that ever his primary role? Or was it situational, depending on matchups?

Not trying to be argumentative, just questioning whether you are making inferences or stating facts based on hard evidence. I get the general premise that players may not as “athletic” at age 29 as they were at age 22, but it seems to me that this is being overstated for the sake of a narrative.

EDIT: I see you have softened your position a bit, and for the record we are in total agreement about the price paid for him.

“He’s a good player, but 5 picks have historically fetched better players.”

Even though I generally agree with this, I think it’s important not to overstate the price.

Two of the five picks have already transpired. While they were not “lottery protected” per se, it was pretty reasonable to assume that the chance of them being lottery picks was pretty remote. So if you say that the cost was 3 unprotected picks and 2 lottery protected picks, that’s a bit more palatable.

Add to that the extreme likelihood that a) the 2027 pick will also fall well outside the lottery and b) that the 2028 pick swap will be irrelevant, and the price seems even less extreme.

And finally, while it is highly unusual for a non-all star player to be traded for 5 “unprotected” picks, it is also unusual for a player to be traded for only picks without good players attached (you might even call the inclusion of Bojan as a “salary dump” that required sweetener. And while I’m not a big KAT fan, when taken together, the prices seem to even out, meaning that if you tacked on 2 unprotected future picks to the price for KAT and subtracted them from the Mikal trade, many here [not me!] would have been thrilled with the trades.

To summarize, the “effective” cost of the Bridges trade was two very valuable unprotected picks (2029 and 2031), three picks that were all but guaranteed to be lottery protected, and one meaningless pick swap. That’s still an overpay by historical standards, but less of one than the “5 unprotected picks and an unprotected pick swap” would suggest.

And as I have said before, it was less the actual cost and more the opportunity cost that rankled me, and by that I mean that it would have been more acceptable if we still had unprotected future firsts left to trade, as say OKC would have had if they had made the same trade. I think that most of us agreed that it was not a prudent “all-in empty the asset tank” trade even if the price paid was overstated.

“In other words, he is playing a lot better than he did last year, such that there is nothing inconsistent about being disappointed in his play last year and being happy with it this year. If you were insisting he was better last year than he had ever been before, you were flat out wrong.”

While I agree with this, I’m not sure whether this is what strat is arguing.

Last year, there were a bunch of folks who were not just down on the trade, but were questioning whether Mikal was in decline and therefore should not be extended even in light of the sunk cost. Strat’s position is that Mikal benefited from his time as a top banana the Nets and had a more diverse skillset than he did with PHX, but was not being utilized properly by Thibs, and that his play belied the stats. There seems to be validity to that opinion in retrospect.

I also felt that the criticism of Mikal was over the top, not in terms of his efficacy (he indeed had significant stretches of mediocre play on both ends) but in terms of his capabilities at his current age and health and the negative implications of extending him. We had already been down that road with Julius, who is now physically declining himself to another all-NBA season and is yet again a bargain on his current extension. Folks should be more careful about playing the Physical Decline card for 29yo players with no history of significant injury. For all we know, Mikal might play at something close to this level for a long, long time.

Mikal is 13-21 on corner 3’s, and his TS% is at .692. Let’s say that was a more realistic 9-21 (around what he shot last year and just above his career average), his TS% would still be .632. At 8-21, it goes down to .620.

Even at those numbers, he is a fringe all-star, or at least worth his extension.

I actually liked what I saw firsthand from Bagley III during the preseason game on 10/9. He’s got talent. Seems to be a problem with either the noggin or the ticker, but he’s only 26 and just got married so maybe he’s primed to contribute to winning basketball. He’s never posted a positive BPM, which is troubling given his raw talent and skillset. Ultimately, I don’t think he’s a Leon Rose kind of player, but wouldn’t mind if he took a flyer on Marvin.